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A Cascade of Influences Shaping Violent Teens

A long-term study of 750 children followed from pre-school through high school suggests that neither nature nor nurture alone explain why some grow up to be violent teenagers. Instead, the authors suggest, an interplay between behavior and environment during childhood create a cascade of influences that shape the teenager’s character.

“None of these children is highly violent as a four-year-old,” said Kenneth Dodge, director of the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and lead author of the study, published in the journal Child Development. “The question is: how is it that some four-year-olds, who display only minor behavioral problems but are otherwise cute and cuddly, still grow into violent teenagers?”

Researchers who followed the children periodically interviewed parents, the children themselves, teachers and peers. The researchers collected school records and observed children on the playground, and as the children matured the investigators also interviewed romantic partners and best friends, and collected arrest records.

“What we found is that small problems cumulate into more serious problems. There’s not one single factor,” Dr. Dodge said.

The study found that children who were slightly impulsive and had mild behavioral problems in pre-school often faced harsh disciplinary action from parents and teachers. Instead of having the desired effect, these actions further alienated the children, often making the child more aggressive and preventing him or her from learning important social and cognitive skills.

As a result, these young children were unprepared for school and often developed social problems; punishments like being sent to the principal’s office meant losing more class time and falling further behind.

By the time the children were in their teens, their parents spent less and less time with them, possibly in order to avoid conflict. With the parents providing less supervision, the children gravitated to similarly estranged peers, Dr. Dodge said.

“It’s not that they are super-predators or biologically destined to life as a criminal,” Dr. Dodge said of the children. “It’s also not the story the liberal folks tell: that it’s entirely a bad environment. It’s a combination of an impulsive, temperamentally difficult child, who elicits problems from the environment that propel the child toward a violent adolescence.”

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health.

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